Beer Engineers to build new brewery next door to Railroad Park ... and Good People Brewing (updated)

Updated at 1:19 p.m. with addition of detail and comments from Good People management.

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – Beer Engineers, an Alabama brewer that has been making its beers on contract in Gadsden, plans to move in to a building next door to the Good People Brewing Co. brewery adjacent to Railroad Park.

An investor in Beer Engineers has acquired the Wood Wade building, which sits between Good People and the idle Merita bakery at the corner of First Avenue South and 14th Street South, Beer Engineers’ owner DB Irwin III said today. Beer Engineers will lease the building from the investor.

Plans call for a brewery, a taproom and a restaurant. The brewery and restaurant are expected to open early next year, with the taproom opening several months later, he said. A heating and cooling business currently located in the building is expected to remain until its lease expires in about six months, Irwin said.

The brewery will have two brewing systems: a 30-barrel system that will make beer for distribution and on contract, and a five-barrel system that will produce beer for the taproom or for special, one-off runs, Irwin said.

Beer Engineers was founded in January, 2012, and began production in April of last year on contract at Gadsden's Back Forty Beer Co. It will continue to produce two beers it currently has on the market, its Velocity Imperial Ale and its Peanut Butter Porter, Irwin said. It will add a pale ale and seasonal beers, which will be sold in kegs and bottles.

Birmingham’s beer market can easily support another brewer, Irwin said, and being located next door to the established Good People brewery should benefit both brewers by making the area a bigger draw for beer lovers, he said.

"Long term, I would think that a diversification of new businesses would benefit the neighborhood," he said. "I don't personally know enough about the people behind the project, the beer or the brand to say whether that would be the case."

Good People, founded in 2008, is the patriarch of Birmingham's fast-growing brewing scene and was among the forces behind a re-writing of the state's laws governing the brewing and sale of beer. It moved in to its current location, which sits directly across the street from the new Regions Field baseball stadium, in 2010.

The brewery has had to add staff in its taproom to accommodate demand on game days, he said.

The Wood Wade building was built in 1932 and has been home to a mill and a lumber company, as well as being used to warehouse cars in the 1950s, Irwin said.